Biggio may be Astros' first Hall of Famer, but there's no lack of Houston baseball greats

Ex-Houston Astros players Craig Biggio, left, and Nolan Ryan, who's also the principal owner, president and CEO of the Texas Rangers, visit before a Major League Baseball game between the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros, Friday, May 18, 2012, in Minute Maid Park in Houston.

Photo: Nick de la Torre, Houston Chronicle

Since "Throwback Thursday" is such a popular thing on social media, let's begin the year with it as a new feature here on Inside Houston Sports.

I'm not sure where we'll take this, but I'll try to give the youngsters some lessons in sports history, the old heads a taste of the good (and not-so-good) ol' days and tie it in with current news.

The obvious topic for today is Craig Biggio becoming the first Astros player to be voted into the national Baseball Hall of Fame.

Biggio isn't the best player the Astros ever had – he wasn't even the best on most of the teams he was on (see: Bagwell, Jeff) – but what a special and well-deserved honor.

While Biggio will be the first of 310 members have an Astros cap on his Hall plaque. Seven players who played for the Astros at some point are already in, including Joe Morgan and Nolan Ryan, who played in Houston for 10 and nine seasons, respectively.

Morgan went with a Cincinnati Reds cap, a team he played with for eight years, winning two World Series and two NL MVPs.

Ryan played just five years with the Rangers, but chose a Texas Rangers' cap for his plaque.

On the day he was elected in 1999, Ryan said he decided on the Rangers' cap, because his five years with the Rangers, which included his 5,000th strikeout, 300th win and two no-hitters, "brought my career and presence in the game to another level."

A few weeks later, at the Houston Baseball Dinner, Drayton McLane gave Ryan a replica of his Hall of Fame plaque with an Astros cap on it.

While Houston is lacking in baseball Hall honorees, nine players who played at least five years here are among the 258 players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including six who consider the Oilers their primary team.

Earl Campbell, inducted in 1991, was the first "true Oiler," as Bud Adams described him, to have a bust enshrined in the Hall.

There are 20 "contributors" in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Adams, the longtime owner of the Oilers isn't one of them, but he should be.

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On this day in history, Jan. 8:

1972 – NCAA announced it will allow freshmen to play team sports.1980 – NCAA Divisions II and III schools said they would sponsor women's championship sports. (Division I schools didn't do so until the next year.)1993 – Michael Jordan scored his 20,000th career point.

Jerome grew up in downtown Acres Homes, Texas. He is a proud graduate of Mabel B. Wesley Elementary and was a basketball team captain at Waltrip High School, where he helped the Mighty Rams to a near-.500 record.

A math genius and engineering major in college, he's still working on this writing thing. He says that the three years he spent as an F.M. Black Panther probably played a more significant a role in the man he would become than the time he spent in college.